LaTeX General Help

The LaTeX command typesets a file of text using the TeX program and
the LaTeX Macro package for TeX. To be more specific, it processes an
input file containing the text of a document with interspersed
commands that describe how the text should be formatted. It produces
two files as output, a Device Independent (DVI) file that contains
commands that can be translated into commands for a variety of output
devices, and a `transcript' or `log file' that contains summary
information and diagnostic messages for any errors discovered in the
input file.

For a description of what goes on inside TeX, you should consult The
TeXbook by Donald E. Knuth, ISBN 0-201-13448-9, published jointly by
the American Mathematical Society and Addison-Wesley Publishing
Company.

For a description of LaTeX, you should consult "A Document Preparation
System: LaTeX" by Leslie Lamport, ISBN 0-201-15790-X, published
jointly by the American Mathematical Society and Addison-Wesley
Publishing Company.

Structure of a LaTeX document

LaTeX files are plain text files produced by either a vanilla text editor
or by a special TeX (or LaTeX) editor. Typesetting instructions are inserted
into the text.

Every LaTeX file starts with a preamble which is followed by the
body. The preamble is a collection of commands that specify the
global processing parameters, such as paper format, heigth and width of the
text, automatic page heads and footlines. As a minimum, the preamble must
contain the \documentclass command to
specify the document's overall processing type This is normally the first
command in the preamble.

The preamble is followed by the body which starts by
\begin{document} and ends with \end{document}. This is the
end of the file as well.

Commands

A LaTeX command begins with the command name, which consists of a \
followed by either (a) a string of letters or (b) a single non-letter.
Arguments contained in square brackets [] are optional while arguments
contained in braces {} are required.